


The second one (or: Adventures at JerseyCon)

by mwestbelle



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Community: bandombigbang, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-30
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:06:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mwestbelle/pseuds/mwestbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bob is a good personal assistant (the best) and he definitely knows better than to fall in love with his boss. But when your boss is the goth-pop comic master of our time, Gerard Way, there's more to the job than keeping a datebook. There are appearances to shepherd him to, showers to make him take, and deadlines to remind him to meet. And, really, he's so earnest, it's not that surprising that a crush might develop. Just at tiny one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The second one (or: Adventures at JerseyCon)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to emcay for the beta, and to everybody who let me complain about this fic, my (fourth!) final attempt to write something for BBB this year.
> 
> Art and mix at the [masterpost](http://mwestbelle.livejournal.com/128799.html).
> 
> (Originally posted June 20, 2009.)

“What does a spleen feel like?”

Bob closed his eyes and exhaled into his cup of coffee before looking over his shoulder. “You never went to bed, did you?”

Gerard had dark circles under his eyes--not the purplish bags from too little sleep, but panda-like swaths of black ink. The bags were probably underneath the ink, though. Gerard shrugged, eyes trained on the mug with laser precision and a distinct lack of subtlety. “Wasn’t tired.”

“Uh-huh.” Bob held the mug out to him. He’d given up on ever actually finishing his own cup of coffee as long as he was around the Ways, who practically breathed it, or Frank and his utter lack of personal boundaries. Gerard took it greedily, draining half of it in one go, ink-stained fingers with chipped nails curling around the Chicago cityscape. “You know you have a signing today.”

“M’fine.” Bob snorted and Gerard looked up, lips still brushing the rim of the mug, eyes big and owlish on top of the panda shadows. His hair was sticking up in all directions, shiny with grease, and his lip was split from chewing on it all the time. He smiled a little, the crooked little-kid smile that was more endearing than any puppy Bob had ever seen. “I am. Fucking promise, okay? I‘ll knock ‘em dead, some shit like that.”

Bob shook his head and went to pour himself another cup of coffee. “Sure you will. You always do.”

Gerard made his slow, almost dreamy way the five feet to the table and sat down, draining the rest of the coffee and leaning forward on his elbows. “So, spleens?”

“I don’t know anything about fucking spleens.” Bob turned back to face him, leaning against the counter and taking a sip of the fresh cup of coffee. “I don’t even know where your spleen is.”

“It’s just here--” Gerard motioned vaguely at his ribs. “--and it’s. Fuck, I just need to get a handle on what it _feels_ like.”

 _“Cut yourself open?” Gerard flipped him off and Bob chuckled. “Why don’t you Google it?”_

 _“Fuck you, man, I was just asking.” Gerard tilted his head into the palm of one hand. “The internet, it’s not personal, you know? It’s not the same as squeezing a real human spleen between your fingers until it squirts blood.”_

 _Bob took another sip of coffee. “You do know this is a book, right? It’s not a full sensory experience.”_

 _“How do I know what the characters would do if I don’t know what it’s like?”_

 _“You don’t know what leading some demented marching band in hell is like, I hear you write that pretty well.”_

 _Gerard sighed, long and pathetic. “It has to be true to the world, Bob. It’s about internal reality.”_

 _Bob shrugged. He had never really gotten the whole concept, no matter how many times Gerard tried to explain it (and perhaps he was subconsciously blocking it _because_ of how many times Gerard explained it). It didn‘t matter if he understood the work, he just had to take care of Gerard. “Maybe in hell spleens feel different.”_

 _“That’s ridiculous.” Gerard frowned, then twisted up his mouth like he always did while thinking. “But. Yeah. If your body isn’t real anymore, who the fuck knows what happens to your organs?”_

 _“Who the fuck knows,” Bob echoed, not voicing his personal addition of _Who the fuck cares?_. Gerard grinned and got up from the table, pausing to kiss Bob’s cheek and steal his mug again._

 _“Thanks!”_

 _“We’re leaving in four hours,” Bob called after him. Gerard raised one hand briefly in acknowledgement before disappearing up the stairs, but the odds weren’t good that he had any idea what he was agreeing to. Bob looked at the coffee pot forlornly, but his pride wouldn’t let him drink the last sludge at the bottom after losing two cups to Gerard._

 _He moved into the living room, where Brian was on the couch, laptop balanced on his knees, cellphone on his thigh, and a small fort of papers, binders, and folders building up around him. It looked like he’d been camping out there for a few days, and maybe he had been--Bob had yet to see him enter the guest bedroom that wasn’t really a guest bedroom since it was full of Brian’s old files and hoodies he wasn’t currently wearing._

 _“Checking out the plan?” Bob sat down next to a stack of photos of Gerard’s strange little face and wrinkled his nose down at it before turning the top photo over._

 _“His fucking _roots_ , he says. Cheap, shady, and fucking cramped is what I say. And don’t fuck up my piles.”_

 _“I just don’t want his creepy-ass face staring at me. I didn’t fuck anything up.” Bob glanced at the piles closest to him--a stack of mailing list forms, the creepy photos, about a dozen copies of the new issue of _The Black Parade_. He picked one up and waved it at Brian. “You don’t think a comic store will have, uh, comics?”_

 _“You weren’t at Lost World of Wonders ‘05,” Brian said darkly. “Put it down. If my emergency kit is a mess because of you, Bryar, I swear to god, I’ll room you with Gerard next month. Queen-sized.”_

 _“You don’t have the balls,” Bob said, but he put the comic back in the stack anyway. He leaned over to look at the screen and winced at the eye-assaulting mix of black, red, and purple. “Fuck, trolling the fans again?”_

 _“Every day.” Brian had a grim slant to his mouth. “You have to keep an eye on these fuckers.”_

 _“Bad news?”_

 _“Not bad.” Brian glanced over at him, one side of his nose wrinkled. “It’s just fucking irritating. Seems like half the county is planning to show up today, and that store is not built for that kind of traffic.” He looked back at the screen, scrolling down to another post, and snorted to himself. “Plus, if I read one more description of Gerard’s _ethereal beauty_ and _juicy ass_ , my balls will never show themselves again.”_

 _Bob snorted and cuffed Brian’s shoulder. “Yeah, sure, like you’d miss them. I‘m surprised they haven‘t fallen off already.”_

 _Brian shoved back at him, careful not to bump into his papers. “Fuck off, asshole, go make Gerard take a shower.”_

 _Bob wrinkled his nose, standing up anyway. “That’s a low blow.”_

 _“It’s in your job description, dickhead, go earn your keep.”_

 _“I can’t believe you get paid the big bucks to fuck around on the internet and I have to get a slime monster into the bathroom for pocket change.” Bob headed toward the stairs anyway, hearing Brian’s shout of “Damn fucking straight I do” as he started to climb._

 _The payroll listed Bob as “personal assistant,” but privately (and not so privately when he and Brian and Frank spilled their woes over a few beers) he considered himself a “professional Gerard wrangler.” And he was, if he did say so himself, pretty damn good at his job._

 _A personal assistant would keep track of the date book, make sure that the client got where he needed to be when he needed to be there; it took a Gerard wrangler to make sure that the client got away from his notebook, into the shower, and then into some appropriately rock-star-of-the-comics-world like clothes before getting him where he needed to be when he needed to be there._

 _“Just a minute,” Gerard said, pen cap dangling out of his mouth while he scribbled furiously. His notebook was thick and ridiculously torn up, with the spiral starting to unwind, the sad remains of torn out pages falling out every so often. It looked ancient--and Bob knew it was one of the four that he’d bought on sale at OfficeMax just over a month ago._

 _Bob shook his head from the door. “No minutes, shower.”_

 _“Sure,” Gerard mumbled around the cap, drawing something that looked like a bleeding cross in the margin. Bob looked down at the various debris that always found its way to Gerard’s floor, no matter how many times he hired a maid service or even tried to clean it himself. He knew that he wasn’t going to be able to get Gerard to see sense from the hall, but he always liked to try anyway._

 _“I’m coming in to get you,” he said, out of a sense of fair play, and hitched up the legs of his jeans to step into the mess. Crumpled up magazines, cartons that may have had food in the them, empty water bottles, old notebooks, pens of all kinds, rulers, a plush Sigmund Freud, the first model of the third edition Mother War figurine (Bob made a mental note to fish that out on his way back to the hall, the developers would want that back), fanmail of all kinds: all fanning out from Gerard like a shining aura of trash._

 _“I’m almost done,” Gerard said vaguely, and Bob knew him well enough to recognize his canned answering machine phrases. _Gerard’s brain is busy right now, here’s something to placate you until he gets back._ His eyes were scanning quick left to right over what he’d written, and when Bob reached down and plucked the pen out of his hand, he squawked his disapproval. “I’m _working_.”_

 _“You’re showering,” Bob said. Gerard wrinkled his nose and made a grab for the pen. “Uh, no, you’re getting in the shower if I have to strip you myself.”_

 _Gerard’s eyes widened, and Bob clenched his fist around the pen with the effort not to blush. Too far. But Gerard tossed his notebook aside--that was how his workroom ended up in this state--and got to his feet with a little crinkle in his nose. “Fine, fine, I’m going.” He moved past Bob, somehow sidestepping all the trash with ridiculous ease. Bob followed him back, stumbling and remembering at the last minute to bend and pick up Mother War without breaking his stride._

 _The bathroom door across the hall clicked shut just as Bob made his way back out of the room and he shouted, “Don’t spend too much time jerking it in there, we’re on a schedule” through the bathroom door._

 _The water turned on and Gerard‘s voice was faintly distorted over the sound. “Fuck you with a rusty spork, Bob.”_

 _Bob nodded to himself, satisfied that the water at least was on, and went to the end of the hall to Gerard’s bedroom to lay out an outfit for him. It was a little surreal to play dress-up with a grown man, but experience had shown it was necessary. The last time Bob had decided it was ridiculous to be picking out clothes for a man in his thirties, Gerard ended up wearing a Hawaiian shirt to a premiere. Luckily, for a man who wore the same pair of sweatpants practically every day of his life, Gerard had a well stocked closet (thanks, no doubt, to Brian’s tireless efforts). Bob brushed past the various suits and jackets--it was a smaller event, more personal, Gerard returning to a comic store of his youth--and laid out a pair of black jeans and a t-shirt with a phoenix spitting flames on it for a splash of color. Besides, he knew Gerard adored that shirt with a passion he reserved for only really tacky things._

 _He was in the process of deciding which shoes went best with the outfit, and then having a quiet mental breakdown because he was _deciding which shoes went best with the outfit_ , and then really, trying to figure out whether to just pick a pair of shoes at random even if it clashed, when Gerard came into the room. Bob dropped both of the shoes he was holding._

 _Gerard was clutching a towel around his waist like it was his last defense, which, in a way, it was. He had another slung around his shoulders, catching the water from his wet hair, but that stopped at the bottom of his chest, exposing a marshmallowy belly, pale and soft with a smattering of dark hair. His knees looked strange poking out from under terrycloth, wobbly and so fucking pale. He glanced down at the ground, and then back to Bob‘s face. “Are you having a shoe crisis again?”_

 _Bob _had_ been having a shoe crisis, and now he thought he was having a crisis of an entirely different kind. “Uh. Minor one. It’s fine.” _

_“Seriously, Bob.” Gerard squelched over to the bed, and Bob was wondering somewhat frantically what happened to the guy who wore black hoodies and black jeans in Texas in the summer and had “being seen shirtless” third on his list of Mortifying Things. He missed that guy. “I’ll be sitting down, no one’s going to fucking see my shoes.”_

 _“Yeah. Good point.” Usually, Bob would remind him that he’d still be walking in, and that his fans were a pretty obsessive crowd. They’d notice. But usually, Gerard wasn’t _naked_ , and Bob really had no desire to argue with his naked boss. It wasn’t that he’d never seen Gerard’s skin before; that was hardly possible with how many hours they’d spent together and how many hotel rooms they’d shared. But it was always embarrassing, and while that sounded bad, it was true. He would see a flash of Gerard’s back, but it would quickly disappear when Gerard tugged his shirt down and looked over his shoulder with a flushed and suspicious face, making sure no one had seen. This was comfortable, like Gerard just didn’t care, and that was kind of disturbing._

 _“Am I going commando today?”_

 _“What?”_

 _Gerard looked up and smirked. “You didn’t lay out any underwear for me.”_

 _Bob hated being blonde and pale and turning fucking pink whenever he was embarrassed. “You’re a big boy, pick out your own. I’m going to help Brian get everything set.”_

 _Gerard turned back to the bed, and Bob felt much better. “Yeah, okay.”_

 _“Okay,” Bob repeated, and made as smooth a mad dash as he could out of the bedroom and back down the stairs. He stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, breathing and talking himself down. It wasn’t weird to be kind of freaked by your naked boss. It just wasn’t. And even if he and Gerard were really good friends on top of that, naked friends were weird too. Naked friends who were usually very carefully _not_ naked was even weirder--a shifting dynamic. Bob had legitimate reasons to be a little freaked out._

 _He didn’t go back into the living room; Brian had his shit down, he knew what he was doing and didn’t need Bob hanging around and muddling up his process or whatever. He did make another pot of coffee and fill up a thermos for the ride over. The store would probably have some burnt coffee for him, and Gerard would drink it happily, but Bob knew he loved coffee from his own kitchen the best. And Bob was paid to make sure Gerard had what he wanted--as long as it was good for him._

 _Gerard made it downstairs before Bob had to go and drag him down, thankfully fully dressed. He came into the kitchen just as Brian was coming from the living room, laptop under one arm and his industrial-sized black bag, not quite a duffel or a suitcase or a tote or anything, just a _bag_ slung over his other shoulder. He gave Gerard a critical once over while Gerard did a little twirl._

 _“Looks good.” Brian got all the way down and frowned. “The fuck is on your feet?"_

 _Bob refused to look down, because it was his fault for letting Gerard pick out his own shoes and he didn't need to see what horror he had wrought. Gerard pursed his lips. “I’m a grown man, I think I can pick out shoes.”_

 _The look Brian gave him was indescribable, and yet, said it all. “Uh-huh.”_

 _“I’m artistic and eccentric,” Gerard offered with a little smile and shrug. “They’ll love it.”_

 _“Probably.“ Brian snorted and hefted his bag meaningfully._

 _Bob rolled his eyes and took the bag from Brian so he could pack the laptop. “Can we finish the shoe conversation in the car, girls?”_

 _“Fuck you.” Brian snapped the buckles on his laptop case closed, and Gerard gave Bob a little smirk that said he remembered Bob was the one who always freaked out about shoes, but he wasn’t going to mention it. Bob was thankful for that, and he felt that the favor had been repaid in kind once they were in the car and he handed Gerard the thermos of coffee._

 _*_

 _Brian was right, of course. He always was about these things--and about most things, if Bob was being charitable, but he was in no mood to be charitable. The store was cramped and there was a line stretching past the dingy little Italian place next door and around by the hardware store on the corner. The owner, of course, was thrilled at the business. Brian looked like a caged hyena, pacing and snarling at anyone who tried to push closer to the back of the store where Gerard was set up._

 _Gerard, as usual, was completely oblivious to Brian’s frustration and anything bad in the world. Once there were fans around, Gerard was thrilled. The advertisements had said he would only be signing official books (available for purchase in the store), but true to form, Gerard was happy to sign anything that would stand still long enough. The line could have moved a lot faster, but Gerard took the time to doodle a little miniature character next to his haphazard “xo G” and smiled for every single picture._

 _Bob had been to enough of these to know where to stand so he didn’t show up in any of the pictures. He hated getting his photo taken enough without having it done while wearing his “uniform.” He liked to feel covered, safe, nice and deep inside a hoodie whenever he could. The t-shirt he wore during events was plain black, but it was tight. It stretched around his arms, over his shoulders, across his chest, and definitely across his belly. Bouncers dressed like this to show off their power, but Bob felt stripped. And sort of like a sausage in a casing that was too small. But it was part of the job description. Gerard didn’t want a security detail or a personal assistant, and Brian didn’t want him to just be sitting alone without any semblance of protection; his fans were generally a sweet lot, but everybody has a few crazies running around after them, and Gerard was enough of a crazy himself (albeit a generally docile one) that Bob suspected his crazy pile was crazier than average. And there was no question Gerard _needed_ a personal assistant. So they compromised: get a guy who could work a Blackberry and could knock together a few heads if the situation called for it, but wasn’t a professional head-knocker or anything. He looked threatening, mostly, and people saw a guy in black jeans and a black T-shirt and assumed he was genuine security, so they didn’t cause trouble. Bob had yet to actually have to protect Gerard from anything other than caffeine deprivation and writer’s cramp._

 _Writer’s cramp sometimes manifested as the less severe but no less painful autographer’s cramp, and Gerard draped himself against Bob’s side on the drive home, making ridiculous purring and cooing noises every time Bob worked his knuckles against the pad of Gerard’s thumb._

 _“Oh my god, you’re the best.” Gerard made another suspiciously feline yowling sound, and Bob turned bright red. Brian snorted from the driver’s seat._

 _“Shut up. People are going to think we have a wild fucking animal in here or something.” But Bob didn’t stop in his hand massage because, well, Gerard needed him. _It’s what I do,_ Bob said to himself._

 _“I don’t care, you’re just. You’re amazing.” Gerard sighed dramatically and slumped further against Bob, body going limp._

 _“It’s what I do,” Bob said._

 _*_

 _That was the last appearance for the next two months, because Gerard was back at work on a new issue and they were all resting up for JerseyCon. Jersey was always glad to show off a kid who made good, and Gerard was always thrilled to be invited, so they hit JerseyCon whenever Gerard wasn’t overseas or buried in deadlines. It was a week before the convention started, and the troops started to assemble again at Gerard’s house. Technically, it was Bob’s job to answer the door whenever the doorbell rang, so Gerard wouldn’t be disturbed from his creative process and Brian could keep yelling at whoever was fucking things up this time. Technically, because nobody _ever_ rang the doorbell._

 _Mikey showed up in the middle of the night. Bob wasn’t sure if he’d had a late flight or bus or something, or if he was running on the Way time that Gerard was usually on, that made pancakes at two in the morning and going to bed by noon seem sensible. It was like daylight savings time or being in a new time zone; the longer Bob lived there, the less weird it was to find Gerard trying to scramble eggs with one hand on the pan handle and one shakily texting Mikey--Gerard’s texts were usually long and with much better phrasing than he ever had in real life--at a quarter past midnight and the more likely he was to do it himself. Of course, that might have less to do with Way time and more to do with just _Wayness_ in general; he was also generally unsurprised to find Gerard sitting on the toilet tank with some pastels and a coloring book._

 _Bob had, in point of fact, been sitting on one of the stools in the kitchen eating leftover lasagna when he heard a trilling beep from behind him. He instinctively grabbed his fork as a weapon, adrenaline conveniently ignoring the block of knives a few inches away from his plate, then turned around to find Mikey blearily flipping his phone open. He spent a solid three minutes exchanging messages with someone before looking up at Bob. “Hey Do you have an extra toothbrush?”_

 _Two days later, Bob was in the living room, feet up on the coffee table. Brian was back at his office checking in on other clients, so the couch was free of papers for once. The front door banged open halfway through Jeopardy._

 _“Where the fuck is Schechter?” Frank tossed his briefcase at Bob, who batted it down to the couch. “He needs to check out my new ink. And I need Gerard’s tax returns.”_

 _“He’s in the office.” Bob shoved the briefcase onto the floor; it didn’t make a very satisfying sound against the plush carpet._

 _“Fucking loser.” He had a lapful of Frank a minute later. Frank rolled up his sleeve, ink smudges from his fingers on the otherwise crisp white cuffs, and held his arm under Bob’s nose. “Check that shit out, how badass is that?”_

 _Bob inspected Frank’s arm. His new ink actually was pretty badass: a portrait of the Bandleader that stretched from elbow to the inside of his wrist with one of the tattered parade banners behind him. Frank always knew the best places to go, and this was no exception; it looked almost like Gerard had drawn it on Frank‘s arm himself. “Yeah, great, now you can show everyone your dumbass gay crush on Gerard with a fucking tattoo of him.”_

 _Frank pulled his arm back and yanked his sleeve back down, then shoved Bob’s head, the heel of his hand hitting just over Bob‘s ear. “Shut up, douche bag, it’s not Gerard.”_

 _Bob shrugged and leaned back against the couch, smirking a little and pretending to watch a woman in a sweater try to puzzle out some lame puns about Ancient Greece. “That’s not what Wikipedia told me.”_

 _The tips of Frank’s ears were pink, and if there was anyone who could defend Gerard’s work to the death, it was Frank. When Gerard got criticized, he would go all serious, with the wide eyes and quick nods all _yeah, yeah, of course, uh-huh_ , and then stew in his room for a few weeks if he thought it was a valid complaint. Bob still remembered trying to coax Gerard out with Colombian blend after he got onto the forums and saw what they were saying about Zed. “The ultimate cheesecake fan boy fantasy, obviously an ink-and-paper rendering of Way’s drooling geek fantasies. This undead mercenary is beyond hot and saucy beyond any call, with little to no resemblance to a real woman. She‘s obviously just a blow-up doll for him…or, sorry, the ‘Bandleader.’” Gerard was crushed and Bob didn’t know if Zed had been intended for the Bandleader in Gerard’s original outline, but when the new issue came out, she was quite definitely taken and very happy with her usually long-distance relationship with Jay, the owner of a tavern and general store who had a big smile, freckles, and indeterminate gender. As far as Bob knew, Zed and Jay were the most popular couple in the series. Of course, Gerard also got plenty of flack for either having a lesbian relationship, or being too afraid to come out and say they were lesbians, but he just smiled at all of that and Bob had heard that he’s gotten some recognition for bringing a character outside the gender binary into popular media._

 _But badmouth Gerard in front of Frank, and get a detailed rant followed by a punch to the teeth. There was a reason that they usually tried to keep Frank boxed up with receipts and slips at conventions, and it wasn’t just because that’s what they fucking paid him for. Brian knew he was a liability, but he was also the “best damn accountant I’ve ever worked with” and wasn’t going to blink at receipts for fake blood, Doritos, and purple glitter. He also didn’t stick out at conventions or events--or rather, he stuck out, but in a good way. _Keeping with the aesthetic,_ as Gerard would say, with his tattoos and spiked belts and various facial piercings and insane blonde and black Mohawk. But he also wore huge thick-framed black glasses and a pocket protector, and had _FUCK YEAH MATH_ scrawled on the front of his Converses next to an anarchy _A,_ and he seriously knew comics._

“I fucked Wikipedia last night in the hotel bathroom,” Frank said, reaching up to tug idly at his ear. It looked like he’d gone up a size since Bob had last seen him, and the plugs he was wearing had stars on them. “Oh wait, no, that was your mom.”

Bob rolled his eyes and shifted back against the couch a little so Frank’s bony ass wasn’t digging into his thigh so much. “Yeah, right, that reminds me, she talked to your mom on the way out, you should tell that bitch to leave me alone.”

Frank sighed when Bob shifted, and settled more into his lap. “That was weak, man.”

Bob shrugged a little and looked around Frank’s big head to see the TV, but a commercial for oil changes or something was one, so he just sat back again. “Yeah. You get out here okay?”

“It was awesome.” Frank tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling. “They had chicken on the plane. I fucking love plane chicken.”

Bob arched his eyebrows. "Chicken? I thought you were done with the animal products."

Frank rolled his eyes and waved his hand. "Plane meat doesn't actually come from animals."

“You and your airplane food.”

“It’s my fucking right as a citizen to like airplane food, man.” Frank turned to grin at him, biting his lip ring. “It’s like a giant fuck you to the status quo, you know?”

“Oh yeah.” Bob grinned back. “You eat that airplane food. Stick it to the man.”

“It’s how I live,” Frank said, shrugging a little. “Somebody’s gotta do it. You can‘t just be complacent in your hatred. Someone has to swim against the flow.”

Bob looked at him for a long moment before reaching down to squeeze Frank’s hip. “You’ve been gone too long, fucker.”

Frank flung his arm around Bob‘s neck and pulled him close to rub their noses together. “You say the sweetest things, baby.”

“Oh.” Gerard had impeccable timing, Bob couldn’t deny that. He looked over the back of the couch. Gerard stood in the doorway in his sweatpants and a Star Wars shirt Bob was pretty sure was his once, hair smashed up to one side with bright red pillow marks down his cheek.

Frank was off Bob‘s lap as quickly as he‘d gotten into it. “You look like Wolverine got your face.”

Gerard reached up instinctively to touch his face and smiled. “Cool.” He held out his arms just in time for an armful of Frank and laughed while he hugged him, leaning in to smack a kiss to his cheek. “Good to see you too, Frankie. How’s the embezzling?”

“Pretty good. I think in a few more years, I’ll be able to swim in a vault of your money.”

“That would be so fucking awesome. I’ve always wanted to do that.” Gerard came to sit next to Bob on the couch, pulling Frank along behind him. “Just Scrooge McDuck that shit.” Frank settled in Gerard’s lap this time, with his legs stretched across Bob’s knees. Gerard squinted at the TV. “What’re we watching?”

“Jeopardy.”

Gerard nodded to himself and managed to stay quiet through an entire juice commercial. “Is Wheel of Fortune coming up?”

Bob scoffed. “Wheel of Fortune sucks.”

“That’s not true.” Bob didn’t have to look over to know Gerard was making his _surprised and hurt_ face, even though they’d had this conversation a hundred times before.

 _"I like Wheel of Fortune," Gerard repeated, the purse of his lips obvious in his words. Frank snickered but didn't add anything, and Bob rolled his eyes._

 _"Wheel of Fortune is for the fucking weak minded, dude. It's a game of chance."_

 _"It is not." Gerard sounded personally insulted, as though Wheel of Fortune was his own creation, or at least a very close family member. "You have to figure out all the, you know, words and clues. It just makes it more interesting with the wheel and the lights."_

 _"And Vanna White," Frank said. "She's hot. With those glittery dresses and shit?"_

 _"Jeopardy requires actual intellect." Bob shook his head. "You don't get to just throw letters out there until you get something. You have to know shit. Be able to think on your feet."_

 _"You have to think on your feet in Wheel of Fortune too," Gerard said, stricken._

 _"I googled Vanna White once," Frank continued, still watching the screen even though they were on some insane extended commercial break and there was a woman who was entirely too excited about cleaning her house on now, "and I got like. Porn and shit. I totally beat it to that."_

 _Bob looked over at him and saw Gerard frowning, a little wrinkle forming between his brows. "Frank, you're disgusting."_

 _"What? Like you wouldn't? I saw her tits and everything. You know you'd just jerk off over a pile of sequins--" he elbowed Gerard in the soft part of his chest, eliciting an "oof" and a dirty look "--and this was sequins with tits inside. You can't fucking lose with sequins and tits."_

 _"Alex Trebek is a serious game host." Bob gave Gerard his most serious look. "You wouldn't catch him fucking around with tits and sequins. He takes the game seriously because it's a serious game. Not like Wheel of fucking Fortune."_

 _"I'm going to put Wheel of Fortune in my next comic," Gerard said, mouth set into a stubborn little line. "And I'm going to dedicate it to you. It's going to say 'For Bob Bryar, who's a fucking dumbass who can't appreciate Wheel of Fortune, the greatest game show on the air'."_

 _Bob looked at him for a long moment before snorting and shaking his head. He really had nothing more to say about game shows, as entertaining as the argument was. "You're such a loser, jesus. How's the chapter coming?"_

 _"S'good." Gerard looked back at the TV, and Bob was never sure if he didn't notice the sudden switches that happened in conversations or if he just wasn't bothered by them in the slightest. From the way that he spoke sometimes, Bob had a feeling that the inside of Gerard’s head worked in quick changes and jumps from one topic to another, like the shaky cam on a zombie film. "The spleen thing is pretty cool, actually, I added in a whole subplot about organ harvesting, it's like. Relevant and shit."_

 _"Spleens?" Frank squirmed a little in Gerard's lip, nearly kicking Bob in the balls (it wouldn't be the first time). "I didn't know there were spleens."_

 _"I'm not telling you anything." Gerard flicked his nose and Frank made a face like an annoyed cat._

 _“You'll tell fucking Bryar about spleens, and not me?"_

 _"Bob isn't a fan," Gerard said with some triumph, still pointing at Frank like he'd been caught in something. "Bob doesn't care."_

 _Which kind of hurt--just because Bob wasn't emblazoning Gerard's art and words on his body didn't mean he didn't care about Gerard's work. But it was true, in a sense, that he would never be a "fan" like Frank was. He liked comics, yeah, but he didn't _like_ comics. Still, he shoved Gerard's shoulder for the sake of pride and reached down to pinch at his side. "Hey, fuck you, everything I do for you and you tell me that I don't care?"_

"That's not what I meant!" Gerard batted at his hand, trying to wiggle away to curl over his ticklish spots, but with Frank weighing him down, he was effectively trapped. "It's not! You're amazing, Bob! Don't!"

Bob flushed a little, but he pushed past it and kept prodding at Gerard's side, poking at the especially sensitive places. "Yeah, sure, I can't trust you now. I know what you really think."

"It's not what I think," Gerard squawked, squeezing his eyes shut, arms flailing to make up for his inability to run away. Frank laughed and seemed to be pretty much enjoying the ride, rocking from side to side with Gerard's movements.

"Make him tell me about the spleens," Frank said with a nasty little grin and Gerard shook his head fiercely.

"I'm not telling you anything, asshole, not fucking. Not a fucking word. I have fucking integrity!" Gerard flailed away to the side and Bob grinned.

"Why don't you tell him about it, Gerard? It's not like he won't be your crazy fan anymore if you tell him about spleens. Did you see his new ink?"

"What? Ink?" Gerard swallowed hard, pushing down his giggles and pushing Bob off with less helpless flailing and a more serious hold, grabbing his fingers to still them. Bob backed off. "Did you get another piece?"

Frank nodded and flushed across the bridge of his nose while he rolled his sleeve up again to show Gerard, obviously nervous. There was no reason to be, Bob had seen Gerard coo over the ugliest interpretations of his art that Bob had ever seen. But Gerard traced his fingers over the lines of the marching band uniform with genuine pleasure and grinned up at Frank. "It's gorgeous."

"I'm going to do a sleeve." Frank grinned too, more comfortable with Gerard's approval. "I think I'm going to get, uh, Mother War up by my shoulder, and maybe the skeleton brigade going down around my arm. And like, text. I don't know what yet, though."

"That would be fucking kickass." Gerard nodded along with Frank's ideas while he talked. "You should tell me what you want next, I'll draw you something."

"Nah." Frank shook his head, and the flush was coming back again. "I don't need any, like, special treatment or whatever."

"Jesus Christ, asshole, you're like. My best friend. Who controls my money." Gerard nudged Frank with his elbow and snorted. "I want to draw you something badass. Or I could write something. If it doesn't suck. It might suck."

"Nothing you do sucks," Frank said with big eyes, and Bob pretended to gag and pushed Frank's legs off his lap.

"Enjoy your mutual admiration lovefest, some of us have actual work to do." He stood up, and Frank flipped him off, backed by Gerard's solemn headshake of disapproval. "Whatever, your life would fall apart without my help."

Frank looked back at Gerard with a slowly dawning mix of amusement and epiphany. "He has a point."

Gerard made an indignant sound and smacked his shoulder with the back of his hand. "That's not fucking true, I do fine on my own."

Frank bit his lip, frowning a little and cocked his head. "What about the time Bob was away for the weekend and you locked yourself in the pantry?"

"That was a solitary incident!" Gerard turned pink and looked down at the carpet. "And I would have gotten out. Eventually. And how was I supposed to know it locked from the outside? That’s tremendously short-sighted, that‘s what it is. I don't fucking know. Who designed that shit?"

"And you only ate Frankenberry that one week when Bob went home for Christmas."

"I _like_ Frankenberry," Gerard said a little desperately.

 _Frank snorted. “For Christmas dinner?”_

 _“I _wanted_ to eat it, okay? I can take care of myself.“ _

_Bob could see the mischief in Frank's eyes, even as he clucked his tongue at Gerard, just like any of their moms. "You should just face it, Gee. You would die without Bob. You need him like a dog needs a tail.”_

 _Gerard frowned, momentarily distracted from his righteous anger. “That doesn’t make sense. Tails aren’t really necessary, unless you mean I need Bob to be attached to my ass.”_

 _And that was more than enough of this conversation for Bob. “Shut the fuck up, it’s Final Jeopardy.”_

 _Frank mumbled something obscene under his breath, but even he knew better than to interrupt the sanctity of Final Jeopardy._

 _After Mary from Connecticut had won the game with “What is Mount Rushmore,” Brian came home with the phone against his ear, and the fact that he was in the middle of a word did nothing to deter Frank. He was like a fucking flying squirrel or something, because one second he was sprawled over Bob and Gerard's laps, and the next, he was punching Brian in the neck._

 _Brian didn't go down, just jabbed his elbow into Frank's chest and kept going with his conversation, a little winded but otherwise normal. Frank stumbled, but recovered enough to jump onto Brian's back. Frank jumping on Bob's back was a fairly regular occurrence, and Bob was used to it by now. But Brian was closer to Frank's size than Bob's, and a sudden doubling of his weight was enough to take him down. They hit the floor hard, and Bob heard Brian snap "I'll call you back, don't fucking set the phone down" before punching Frank again. "Get the fuck off me, asshole, I'm _working_."_

"Yeah, so am I. Where are the tax returns? You said you'd fax them to me three fucking weeks ago, dickface, and I haven't seen them."

The look Brian gave him would have felled a weaker man. Frank just smirked. "I didn't _fax_ them to you because you don't have a fucking fax machine, jackass, and even if you did, you're fucking here now and I can fucking hand them to you."

"Maybe I got a fax machine just for you, dipshit, did you think about that?"

The insult wars between Brian and Frank were legendary, and Bob looked over at Gerard, who was watching the argument with mild interest. Bob looked back down at his knees, and then at the TV. The Jeopardy credits were ending, and Wheel of Fortune was starting. He reached over and nudged Gerard's shoulder. Gerard shrugged away from him and shot him a dark look. "Don't even try, Bryar. You're on my shit list."

Bob shrugged and turned to watch the show. It got boring after a few minutes (fucking Wheel of Fortune, seriously, he would never understand what Gerard saw in that ridiculous show), and he looked back at Brian and Frank. Frank had gotten as far as showing Brian his new ink. Brian was running his thumb over the breadth of the Bandleader's tattooed shoulders, and Frank was giving him a kind of unsettling look. Bob wasn't sure what to make of it.

A bag of chips appeared in his field of vision, and Bob looked over his shoulder to see they were held by Mikey, who was watching the TV with an expression of faint consternation. "I don't like that wheel."

Gerard didn't flinch. He probably had some sixth sense that let him know whenever Mikey was near, like a psychic collar with a bell on it. "It'd be cool if someone's tie or something got stuck in it though, right?"

"I guess. That never happens though." Mikey ate a chip and offered the bag to Gerard. "It just spins. And makes that fucking irritating sound."

"I guess." Gerard looked over at Frank and Brian, and then to Bob. Bob looked at him, and over at them. Frank was leaning against Brian's shoulder to look at something on his phone, nothing out of the ordinary. He looked back at Gerard who rolled his eyes and sighed. Sometimes Bob had no fucking idea what he was missing.

*

Living at the house was a much stranger event when Frank and Mikey were there too. The addition of two more people made a surprising amount of difference, both in terms of space and interactions. The bathroom was always in hot demand in the morning. Bob couldn't get in for the five minutes he needed to dunk his head and brush his teeth, because Mikey was flat ironing his hair, even though he wouldn't leave the house at all today, and Frank had to shower and use fifteen different shampoos or something. The bathroom always smelled fruity and flowery and weird as fuck after he got done, and there was never ever any hot water.

Meal times were different too. They didn't really eat together normally, because they didn't have _family dinner time_ or anything ridiculous like that. But Bob would order a pizza, and Gerard would bring his notebook and sit on a stool next to him while they waited for it to come, and if Brian was around and not in the middle of something, he'd come into the kitchen once he smelled food and hang out for a few slices worth. But now there seemed to be delivery coming at all fucking hours, the guys from the Thai place and the sub place standing on the step at the same time, giving each other evil looks. Bob wasn't sure if there was a longstanding enmity between the Thai Hut and Jimmy John's, or if maybe the guys went to rival high schools or something, but for a few minutes he was worried someone was going to get T-boned on their way out of the subdivision. Luckily, he got the door closed before any screeching tires were heard, so if anyone called, he could just say he didn't see anything.

Frank liked to cook. Well, Frank thought he liked to cook. Frank liked to pretend to cook. His most daring recipe involved farfelle instead of spaghetti or rotini, but he commandeered the entire kitchen, spreading out ingredients that Bob was pretty sure had nothing to do with whatever he was making (which was usually noodles with tomato sauce from a jar). It brought them together in a strange way. Mikey was usually sitting at the table texting or reading over Gerard's story notes and making random comments like "is it a metaphor for eroticism?" and "but why would his head be that shape?" that made sense in context, because Gerard nodded along. Or maybe they didn't, because Gerard nodded along to everything Mikey said, even when it made no sense at all, as far as Bob could tell. Gerard was either listening to his critique from Mikey or writing, sitting on one of the stools or maybe curled up under the table between the legs, depending on the day. Brian could be heard in the living room, and when Frank was cooking, he had a tendency to wander in during his call, or even set his laptop on the kitchen table and conduct business from there. Bob was wherever disaster was likely to be, so in the kitchen while Frank was cooking was a pretty safe bet.

His sleeping pattern had been off ever since he started working for Gerard. You couldn't keep office working hours, or even slightly more normal assistant working hours, when you were working for Gerard. Bob got used to waking up whenever he was needed, sleeping whenever he got a chance, and drinking enough coffee to give a racehorse a heart attack in between. When the house was full though, Bob started to adapt to the habits of the other people around him as well. Frank had a more regular schedule, though he would stay up far into the night if he was in the middle of a conversation, and Brian usually disappeared into his room for something around midnight: sleep, more work, jacking off, who could say? Mikey kept a schedule, but not one that Bob had ever been able to figure out. It existed, and that was all he knew. Bob was up more, and slept less, partly from stress for the upcoming convention and everything he still had to plan, and partly because he got stuck talking to Frank about the importance of dogs to your everyday life and helping Mikey find a sushi place that would send him calimari at two o'clock in the morning.

With everyone around, it would make sense for Bob to spend time talking and laughing, and he did. But for the most part, he was busier than he ever was, because there was a convention coming up and everyone wanted a piece of Gerard. He fielded phone calls from planners day in and day out, and they all wanted to know the same things, and he told them what was going on, and then someone else called back wanting to know too. Some of the events Gerard was invited to, Bob could dismiss out of hand (judge for the costume contest; he was much too proud of anyone who dressed up in a costume to put value judgments on them) and others that he could accept (emcee for the charity art auction; he had several pieces up, and Gerard, of course, never turned down an opportunity to work with charity, fucking saint). He had to check in with Gerard about when he wanted to do signings (whenever was convenient, really, he just wanted to be there for the fans) and if he was willing to speak on panels (yes to "The Gendered Role of Sidekicks" and no to "Zombies and You" because he wanted to sit in on that one himself). It was a hectic time, but every time Bob talked to Gerard, it just seemed to reinforce what a fucking nice guy he was, which sucked. Life would have been so much easier if Gerard was an asshole. He would still be hot, yeah, but then Bob could jerk off thinking of him but still sneer at him behind his back, get some sick pleasure from getting off to someone he hated. But Gerard was sweet, and Gerard cared about the fans, and Gerard wanted to do absolutely everything he could to make JerseyCon a great experience for everyone. And Bob wanted to hug him and hold him down and kiss him all at the same time.

Some of the warm fuzzy feelings faded as the trip got closer and packing time started. Bob was in charge of packing. Brian had put Bob in charge of packing, Gerard had agreed for Bob to be in charge of packing. It was Bob's job to pack. Apparently it was Gerard's job to hover and interfere as much as humanly possible.

"I was thinking about the green one."

Bob zipped up the garment bag holding Gerard's nice suit for whatever fancy dinners or ceremonies he would have to go to. "No."

"Why not? I like that one."

"It has a giant hole in it. The seam is split."

Gerard pouted. "I _like_ the green one."

Bob looked up at him. "Do you want to show the entire convention your armpit?" Gerard twisted up his mouth and looked down. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"I still like it," Gerard said.

"Why don't you go do your job and let me do mine?"

"I don't feel like it." Gerard rolled onto his back so he was looking at Bob upside down, his hair hanging over the side of the bed.

"We do things we don't want to do sometimes. It's being a fucking grown up."

"I'm not a grown up." Gerard grinned, which upside down, looked particularly horrific. "I make comics for a living. What self respecting grown up would do that?"

"Fine, don't work." Bob gathered up the socks that he'd paired downstairs from the wash basket and tucked them into the corner of the suitcase so they would take up as little room as possible. "I need to get this done, though."

"I can pack my own suitcase," Gerard said, petulantly.

"Because that used to work out so well."

"It was fine."

"You used to wear Hawaiian shirts." Bob arched his eyebrows. "There's nothing fine about Hawaiian shirts, Gerard."

"So it wasn't perfect." Gerard wrinkled his nose. "Fuck you, Hawaiian shirts are awesome."

“Hawaiian shirts are fucking ugly at the best of times.” Bob shifted his weight onto his heels so he could reach for the stack of T-shirts, because bribing Gerard to wear something clean was easiest when you had plenty of options. “And they’re not formal wear."

Gerard spluttered, which was actually pretty epic upside down, then rolled over onto his stomach. “They’re _festive_. At least I don’t wear fucking plaid.”

 _“Plaid is classic,” Bob said solemnly, then frowned. “You do so wear plaid, asshole, you’ve stolen half of my flannel shirts.”_

 _“That’s just because they’re warm,” Gerard sniffed, “I’m still ideologically opposed to them.”_

 _“Yeah, well I’m ideologically opposed to you looking like even more of an escapee from some kind of asylum.”_

 _“My fashion sense is quirky yet stylish,” Gerard shot back. He was picking pieces of lint off the carpet and rolling them into scratchy little balls between his fingers. Bob knew he would be finding them all over the house for weeks._

 _“Don’t go quoting the blogs at me,” Bob paused in his packing to give Gerard a look with a small smirk. “I can give you ten more that said you look like a seventy-year old man.”_

 _Gerard just snorted and sprawled his arms back over his head to hang off the bed. His hair was dark even against the deep blue covers on his bed, and Bob would probably long to touch it, or something else ridiculous like that, if he didn’t know how much greasy residue he’d get on his hands. He sort of longed for it anyway._

 _At least he was able to get the packing done._

 _*_

 _Working for Gerard Way was sort of like being a member of a circus. Bob had never been in a circus, but he imagined it was something like this: early mornings, late nights, heavy lifting, temperamental creatures, bright colors, gaping crowds, lots of squealing, things going wrong, things getting lost, ups and downs and flips, and a whole fucking lot of freaks. They made an interesting parade going through the airport, with Brian up front, balancing his phone against his shoulder while he sent e-mails on another one, pulling his bag along behind him on rollers. Mikey followed, bag slung over his shoulder and hair a mess because for a guy who straightened his hair so the coffeemaker could see, he was a super casual flier. Frank followed him, looking tiny and furious, like he always did in airports, with a cap jammed on over his fauxhawk because his piercings caused enough shit in security by themselves. Bob was keeping the rear, walking in step with Gerard, who had a tendency to wander into the little stores on the concourse if something caught his eye and forget what gate he was going to and when his flight was. Bob thought of them like a traveling circus like this, though he wasn’t sure who was who. Brian was probably the ringmaster, directing everyone in his orbit and calling the shots, and maybe Mikey could be one of those sad, hobo clowns with fake stubble painted over the lower half of his face. Frank was an acrobat maybe, someone tiny and able to wriggle his way out of the worst knots. Gerard could be an elephant or something, what everybody really came to see. Which would make Bob like, a glorified zookeeper or something. He wasn’t sure what he thought about that._

 _Security was easier this time than when they were flying to LA. There were always problems on the way to LA. It was possible it just seemed that way because Bob hated LA, hated the heat and the people and the drivers, but he still thought that the trips to LA were full of trouble. This time Frank had remembered to put plastic retainers in all of his piercings so he wouldn’t set off the fucking metal detectors and get searched _again_ , so that cut down on a big part of their time. The lines weren’t too bad, and after getting it scanned, Bob gave into Gerard’s demands, which were spoken not in words but in huge sad eyes, to carry his bag as well as Bob’s own._

 _Brian was obsessive about obeying flying guidelines, so they always ended up at the gate with nothing to do for nearly an hour. Bob always brought his iPod or a magazine now. Mikey had his phone, and Frank was infinitely capable of entertaining himself. But Gerard seemed hellbent on being bored._

 _“I packed like, six magazines. Take your pick.”_

 _“I don’t feel like reading.” Gerard frowned at all of the glossy covers, pausing for a few seconds on a cover depicting some current supermodel to make a face before shoving them back into Bob’s bag. “Talk to me.”_

 _“We’re going to be talking together all weekend, Gerard.”_

 _“Why don’t we start now?”_

 _“We talk all the time.” Bob arched his eyebrows. “Why do we have to do it right now?”_

 _Gerard pouted. It wasn’t as effective as it used to be, which is to say it only made Bob feel begrudgingly sorry for him instead of soul-crushingly guilt ridden like he always used to. “Can I have one of your earbuds?”_

 _Bob hated listening to music with only one earbud in. He missed so much of the production value and everything was strange and tinny, but he pulled one out anyway and offered it to Gerard. “Here.”_

 _The music amused Gerard for about forty seconds before he was plucking the iPod off Bob’s thigh and scrolling through his music making derisive sounds and starting one song, and then another, and then another, not giving any more than twenty seconds of play. It made Bob’s head throb, and they weren’t even in the air yet._

 _“Cut it out with the fucking musical ADD, man.”_

 _Gerard shifted in his chair, thigh rubbing up against Bob‘s under the armrest. “I’m just trying to find something good.”_

 _Bob couldn’t take it. He pulled his other earbud out and dropped his iPod into Gerard’s lap. “Here, find what you want. I’m going to go buy coffee or something.”_

 _There was a kiosk around by the restrooms and Bob ended up in line behind a bunch of guys who are going to some kind of science convention. He heard a hell of a lot about molecular stability that he planned to spring on Gerard when he gets back; Gerard had always been kind of the unspoken master of random trivia, and Bob liked every chance to one-up him. He was feeling charitable by the time he got to the register, and a little sorry for snapping, so he bought a jelly donut, which he knew Gerard would secretly treasure at least partly because eating them made him think of vampires._

 _He brought both coffees, and the donut in a neat little bag, back to their seats, but Gerard didn’t have earbuds plugged in at all and his own seat was taken by a kid with the slightly slack-jawed smile that said fan._

 _Bob couldn’t really wander through the airport holding coffees, like he would normally do if Gerard was communing with his public. It happened more often than most people would think, most people being Gerard, because _actual_ most people would realize that all black and giant bug-eye sunglasses aren’t actually very stealthy. Gerard was always surprised and pleased when fans approached him while he was “incognito,” and Bob got used to disappearing for a little while, because as much as he liked to poke fun, Gerard’s fans really cared, and so what if he wanted to give a kid a nice few minutes with his idol? Call him sentimental, he didn’t like to interrupt._

 _But the coffee was going to get cold, so he loitered like a creep by the drinking fountain for a couple minutes (more than one mom walking by with her kids gave him a dirty look) before heading over._

 _“I was looking at it and it was just like, fuck, I can’t _do_ this anymore, if you want me to draw one more mashed up, regurgitated, LSD-fueled excuse for a character, I’ll fucking put my tablet pen through your eye.”_

 _The kid laughed appreciatively, and Gerard looked up at Bob when he loomed, and smiled. “Hey Bob, I was just--”_

 _“Telling your escape from Cartoon Network?” He’d heard it before, many times: it was one of Gerard’s favorite stories. Gerard grinned._

 _“That’s why you’re my main man. Oh, and you bring me coffee too, fucking awesome.” Gerard held his hands out for the coffee and took a long swallow before sighing and nodding to Bob. “This is Bob. He’s awesome.”_

 _The kid looked at him and smiled too. It wasn’t quite the same hero worship that Gerard got, but it was close enough to make Bob’s skin itch. “Uh, hi.”_

 _Bob smiled and thank god, the stewardess started to announce rows, so he didn‘t have to be an asshole. “Sorry, but we’ve got a flight, so.”_

 _“Yeah, I. Yeah.” The kid clutched what looked like one of Bob’s magazines to his chest, and he got up and waved awkwardly to Gerard before running off._

 _“Did you give him my magazine?”_

 _Gerard gave him a flat look. “You had like, six.”_

 _Bob grumbled; he wasn’t actually pissed about losing the magazine, but flying always made him tense, and it was worse when Gerard was in a twitchy mood._

 _Luckily, Bob was sitting next to Mikey, who was almost eerily quiet. He never took his earbuds out, and Bob didn’t think he was sleeping, but you could never tell. Gerard was a few rows ahead with Brian and Frank, and he kept looking back at Bob (and maybe Mikey). Bob waved the first few times, then folded his arms across his chest and settled back into his seat, determined to relax. He had a long weekend ahead, and since Brian had told him this morning that he would be rooming with Gerard to be positive he was on schedule, he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be getting much rest at all._

 _*_

 _Bob had no idea when Gerard had changed from the guy who feared shirtlessness above all else into a raging nudist. In the two days they'd been sharing a hotel room, he'd walked in on Gerard in: just his boxers, just his jeans, just a t-shirt (which technically was an exception to the former shirtlessness fear, but still definitely counted), just a towel, just his _socks_. According to Gerard, who only offered an explanation after the fourth time Bob had walked into the room and promptly turned on his heel to sit in the hallway feeling like a creep, Brian had instigated a shower rule for conventions._

"No one likes a stinky writer," Gerard said, dutifully repeating the new gospel, and if this was last year, and Bob was in a room with Frank and Brian, or even if it was last con, when Gerard was obsessed with covering every square inch of skin besides his face, which had some kind of natural immunity, he would have been thankful. Gerard smelled. It was a simple fact, and, the more Bob interacted with Mikey, he guessed it was genetic fact as well. There was no way to get around it, and it wasn't really a value judgment--he saved judgment for Gerard's nasty greasy hair. Bob was only around for the tail end of Gerard's long, lank, disgusting hair that he flat out refused to take care of (or wash, or brush), but he remembered the horror well enough. Now that Gerard had chopped most of it, the grease wasn't quite as impressive to an outside view, but Bob could still pick out the tell-tale shine, usually after Gerard spent a week in his room trying to run up to a deadline. But hair aside, he usually smelled at least a little, and Bob was kind of used to that. He was kind of into that, he'd discovered with fresh horror, and that was when he knew that yeah, he'd really sunk _that_ low, that his employer's body odor sort of turned him on. It was endearing. Kind of.

But now Gerard was _clean_ , all the time. He was clean, but taking a shower didn't really combat the terminal laziness that lead to a lack of showers. No, now Gerard was clean, but he lost interest in the whole process at some point before he got all (or any) of his clothes on. It was normal to sit around in a t-shirt and boxers, watch TV, when it was just the guys, sure. But it wasn't normal for Gerard, and Bob had nothing to prepare himself for this. _Skin_ , everywhere all the time. He tried everything he could think of, subtle hints and outright mockery, but Gerard would just shrug.

"The air-conditioning in this place is pretty intense," he said, after having cranked it down to fifty degrees. "Aren't you cold?"

Gerard, with his stupid wet hair and his stupid boxer shorts with little faded Bat-signals on them, just shook his head and kept doodling in the corner of the crossword puzzle Frank had challenged him to fill out. So far, he had "establishment" and "chronicle" across filled in, and "Rome," "Huxley," and "tracheotomy" down. "It's not so bad." Like he couldn't even feel how his stupid weirdly shaped nipples were hard on his chest, and okay, Bob wasn't a nipple expert, but it couldn't be natural for them to be that pink.

None of that worked, but Bob hadn't really expected it to; if there was something Gerard wasn't, it was a creature of subtlety. So he tried the direct approach.

"Hey asshole, put some clothes on."

Gerard laughed, like a stupid duck or something, and gave Bob a smile. "I'm good, man, don't worry about me."

Bob wasn't worried about Gerard. Or he was, but only in the capacity that Gerard might have a fainting spell or need psychiatric assistance for the rest of his life if Bob fucked him against the bathroom counter. Not that Bob would do something like that normally--he was a gentleman who _totally_ would be happy to shepherd Gerard into bed--but desperate times caused for desperate measures, and after finding himself smelling one of Gerard's socks while he was in the shower, Bob didn't know _what_ he would do if presented with any kind of opportunity. He flat out couldn't trust himself.

It was scary, in the way that falling in love is, which sucked because it was one thing to want to bone your boss (a very bad thing) and another one entirely to fall in love with him. It wasn't like Bob hadn't worked for hot people before; he hadn't exactly been assistant to the rich and famous, but no one who was going to hire him was a slob or anything. There had been some nice fresh-from-the-personal-trainer bodies, strong and tan and shining, just the kind of guys who sometimes sidled up to him the few times he went to a club. They were hot. Bob didn't care. Gerard could be fucking pasty and squishy and smelly and still beat all of them because he wasn't any of those other guys. He was Gerard.

Bob went out to buy Brian a latte, because he was a decent human being and also because he wanted to hide out in his room for a while. But Brian barely opened the door a crack, and Bob could see his hair was sticking up all over the place (like usual) but in different directions, and then that he wasn't wearing a shirt but was wearing a dark scowl. " _What?_ "

Bob held up the latte. "Brought you coffee."

Brian eyed it and licked his lips. He stopped scowling and just shook his head. "Bob, man. I. No." He closed the door in Bob's face, and Bob thought he heard the trill of a giggle.

Halfway down the hallway, Bob's brain refused to be kind to him and let him know that yeah, he'd definitely heard a giggle, and no, it wasn't a girl's giggle. _Fuck._

He swiped his keycard at his door and came in without thinking, and for once, Gerard wasn't naked. He was wearing his nasty sweatpants and a big JerseyCon 05 T-shirt. He was lying on his belly, flipping through a sampler they'd been giving out today. Bob realized too late how pathetic it was that he could recognize Gerard's shirts from the back, and Gerard looked up and beamed.

"You brought me coffee."

Bob dropped the keycard on the dresser on his way across the room and he sat down on the bed next to Gerard, holding out the latte. "Yeah."

Gerard sat up and took it carefully by the cardboard holder. He folded one leg up under his body and took a sip. "Mm. Have you taken a look at this yet?" He nudged the sampler with his other foot.

Bob picked it up and flipped it over to read the back. "Not yet. Anything good?"

"Yeah, there's some cool stuff." Gerard settled the cup on his knee and gestured for Bob to open the sampler up. "I fucking love seeing new things, you know? Kids getting their chances and stuff. It's fucking magical."

Bob snorted and nodded, flipping the booklet open. "A nerdy Hallmark moment."

"You should really read it. You should. Hold on, there's this one that's got like, a guy? And a moat?" He used his free hand to pull it out of Bob's hands, and Bob let him. Gerard balanced the sampler on his leg and paged through, making a concentrating face. "There's a dragon too, I think. I don't know, it was fucking cool and the art is like. Really minimalist but really evocative, you know?"

Bob made an affirmative sound and sort of turned his brain off, leaving his ears open to listen to Gerard's story. Gerard could talk about comics forever and Bob could listen to him almost that long. He was _excited_ about things in a way that Bob couldn't help but find endearing. This was his dream job, but he wasn't tired of it and he wasn't jaded by asshole editors or any of that, he still loved what he was doing with the kind of dorky enthusiasm he always had and. Bob loved that about him. More than pretty much anything else.

"And. You're not even listening, are you?" Gerard prodded Bob's thigh, digging his knuckles into the muscle. Bob flinched away instinctively and looked up to see Gerard giving him a suspiciously soft look. "You should read it, okay?"

Bob forced himself to smile a little. "I don't have to if you tell me all about it."

"You really should, though." Gerard bit his lip and he had that weird look in his eyes. Bob didn't know how to place it. "I mean. There are things you need to do, right? And. They're good for you. You think they'll be good, and even if. You want to read this sampler, right, because it's new? And some parts of it might suck and. The exposition might be sort of clunky, and maybe some of the artists don't really work in a style you like or the anatomy is all out of whack, but. But you also read some that are _really good_. They're just. They're exactly what you've been waiting for. And all the other parts are worth it, for those parts. Right?"

"Uh." Bob blinked at him and he shook his head. "I guess so?" It sounded like another one of those Gerard things he would never understand, and he shifted to look back down at the sampler. "Which was the one you liked so much?"

Gerard sighed, loud and irritated. "The one with the moat." There was a long moment where neither of them said anything, although Bob got the feeling that there was something important to say. Gerard shifted, getting up off his leg and moving to stand. "I'm going to go see Brian."

Bob looked up from the booklet. "Uh, I wouldn't." Gerard looked over his shoulder at him and Bob swallowed and felt the side of his lip curl up a little. "He's really busy."

"He has time for me," Gerard said, and it sounded almost like an accusation.

"Not right now he doesn't," Bob said, and it was obvious Gerard was going to do what he wanted to do unless he got some solid evidence against it. "He's, um. He's got someone. With him."

"He. _What?_ " Gerard boggled, eyes huge and a little wrinkle in his nose. "With who?"

"Somebody," Bob said vaguely.

Gerard humphed and folded his arms across his chest. "After everything we've said about not banging the comics groupies, I can't believe he would just go and--"

"It's not a groupie," Bob interrupted, and he squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to see Gerard's face when he finally admitted, "I think it's Frank."

"He's. Frank and." Gerard seemed at a loss for words until he planted his hands on his hips and gave Bob as severe a look as any nun ever did in his Catholic school days. "Well, fucking _finally_."

Bob stared. "Really?"

"Well, yeah." Gerard shook his head and clucked his tongue, and it was probably wrong for Bob to be so attracted to someone who acted so much like his grandmother. "Frank's been trying to hit that for _years_."

"Has he?"

"Oh yeah. And Brian's obviously been all tied up with his issues about _duty_ and power imbalances and not fucking employees or whatever."

"Yeah?" Bob didn't know how he hadn't known any of this, and Gerard apparently felt the same way.

"Did you not _notice_?"

Bob shrugged, feeling bizarrely on the spot. "Uh, I'm not really good with shit like that."

Gerard mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "tell me about it."

*

Bob had definitely been hoping that he'd been horribly but humorously mistaken about what he'd assumed was going on in Brian's hotel room last night, but Frank showed up at the continental breakfast half an hour later than usual, with messy hair, a self-satisfied smirk, and a trail of hickeys from under his ear to his collar bone. The last of which was well displayed along with all his tattoos, obvious through the wifebeater he was wearing.

"You're disgusting," Bob said into his scrambled eggs and Frank laughed and flipped him off, sitting down next to Gerard with a plate piled high with french toast, hashbrowns, and what looked to be the entire contents of the fruit bar.

"It would be disgusting if I told you how much come I had dribbling out of my ass this morning."

Gerard looked down at his oatmeal, stricken. "Oh my god."

"He's such a fucking. I don't even know, but it was _good_ , I can tell you that much."

"Yeah?" Gerard pushed his bowl away and stole a strawberry off Bob's plate.

Bob pulled his plate away belatedly. "Hey, take Frank's, he's got plenty." Gerard made a face at him, then turned his attention back to Frank after popping the strawberry into his mouth.

"It was amazing." Frank's eyes went kind of dreamy and he licked his lips in a way Bob was pretty sure had nothing to do with the amount of maple syrup he was pouring over everything on his plate. "Just...you know how it is when you've wanted something for a really fucking long time, and you're starting to think it's never going to fucking happen?"

 _Yes,_ Bob thought, stabbing at a piece of bacon with some excess frustration.

"Oh yeah," Gerard sighed.

"Well." Frank looked down at his plate, and then back up, and the pleased pink flush to his cheeks made Bob's stomach turn over with pure jealousy. "I got it."

"That is so fucking romantic," Gerard cooed, just as Brian appeared, looking faintly less debauched, apart from the bite mark right on his tattoo.

"What the fuck is this asshole saying about me?" Brian scowled, but he sat on Frank's other side and slid his hand immediately up under Frank's hair to rest possessively around his neck. Frank leaned into it like a fucking puppy, and Bob quietly hated them.

"Just telling us how you put rose petals everywhere and put Celine Dion on the stereo." Gerard laced his fingers and rested his chin on top of them, batting his eyelashes at Brian in a distressingly appealing way.

Brian snorted, and Bob saw him rub at the side Frank's neck with his thumb. "Trust me, it's nothing compared to this jackass. He cried."

"I did," Frank said, solemn. "It was so fucking beautiful, I couldn't hold it back. They were like little wet balls of my love."

"Oh, is that what they were?" Brian looked over at Frank and squeezed the back of his neck. "Because, you know, I thought I kind of had a hold on your _balls of love_."

"Gross," Gerard said happily, the corners of his eyes crinkled up. Seeing them together, Bob couldn't believe he really hadn't guessed that they'd been circling each other. It seemed easy, and he wondered briefly, bitterly if it would ever be easy for him. Probably not.

He pushed back from the table, and even the lovebirds looked his way at the sound. "I'm going back to the room. Get some shit done before Gerard's panel."

Gerard braced his hands on the table. "I'll give you a hand."

"I'm good," Bob said, and Gerard's hands fell back into his lap. He seemed almost disappointed, though Bob had no idea why. He knew Gerard practically lived for brunch, and he needed to eat up so he didn't pass out at the panel. It had happened.

Bob made it as far as the elevator before Frank tackled him from behind. He staggered, but his body was conditioned to this, and his legs instinctively braced and his arms came up to make sure Frank wouldn't slide back. Frank's breath was hot and sticky against his neck and smelled like maple. "Don't fuck it up, Bryar. I'm not fucking playing."

"I'm not. What the fuck are you talking about?" Now that the rush of adrenaline and instinctive protection was wearing off, he batted behind his back at Frank, like a bear swinging at a mosquito.

" _Seriously_ ," Frank said. "You need to get with the fucking program." And then Frank was sliding off his back and the elevator was dinging, and when Bob turned around to look at him, Frank made the stupid _I've got my eyes on you_ gesture, narrowing his eyes when he pointed at Bob.

Bob got into the elevator and wondered what the fuck he'd done to deserve this shit.

*

Gerard's panel was at noon, but being the man of the people that he was, he showed up at ten to visit with all the people who were already waiting in line. Bob never got used to seeing the starry, worshipful look in their eyes; it was painfully familiar.

There were two Mother Wars in the line, and Gerard cooed over both of their costumes, fingering the frizzy wigs and tapping on the eyeglass in their gas masks. There was a Zed and Jay near the end of the line, and although Gerard enthused about every costume he saw, Bob could tell he was particularly tickled by them. He signed the Jay's copy of _Bullets_ and joked with her about the old days, and, a brilliant shade of pink that Bob could hear a lot of onlookers "awww"ing at (Bob did it silently), signed the Zed's thigh, right under the painted-on tattoo. There were some kids in the line who were obviously at their first convention and were entirely starstruck, and Gerard gave each of them hug and signed whatever they had on them--a napkin, a movie ticket, and the cardboard case from a gift card. Eventually, as the panel got closer and the word started to spread that Gerard Way was out chatting, the line got too long for Gerard to interact with, and he blew dorky kisses while Bob shepherded him back into the room to get up behind his table before everyone started pouring in.

The other guys on the panel were mostly guest artists who had worked on _The Black Parade_ , although one of Gerard's editors from back when he was with Eyeball ended up coming too, and Bob saw Gerard give him the tightest hug of all.

It wasn't the biggest room, obviously, but that meant it filled up quickly. Gerard watched kids struggling to fit in for about three solid minutes before he offered up his chair. Bob shook his head, but the rest of the guys followed suit, and the lot of them ended up sitting on top of the table (some of them with their namecards balanced on their laps) for the talk.

Bob couldn't listen to Gerard during panels. There was something that he could never place that just seemed wrong. He was distracted by the flashes of cameras, blinking red recording lights, and outbreaks of laughter or chatter after something particularly clever. He'd heard Gerard mumbling all his major points to himself, made sure that the notecard he scribbled them down on was in his back pocket, even though Bob had never seen Gerard refer to notes during panel. He just _talked_ , and Bob felt a sharp rush in his belly and realized that he was jealous.

It was so fucking stupid, and he was embarrassed by it. He could feel a slow spread of color starting in his face, because...he was jealous of an audience of fans? He wanted Gerard to talk to _him_ about comics and feminist theory, see that weird smile and the flapping hands. Gerard did all of those things, but there was a light inside him when he talked to the fans; it was unmistakable. Bob wanted to give him that light, and if that wasn't the lamest thing ever, he was _jealous_ that a bunch of people Gerard didn't even know could do it.

But that wasn't true, exactly, because he knew what Gerard thought of his fans. He didn't think of them as people he didn't know, not at all.

"In a lot of ways, I mean, they know me better than anyone," Gerard had told him, lying on the couch half asleep and half delirious, just after he'd finished the last press tour for _Three Cheers_. "They don't. This stuff--" he waved his hand in the air, between himself and Bob "--it clogs shit up. It's not reality in the sense that art is reality. _Art_ is where I'm me, really. Art and my books, and they know that. They don't get caught up in like, what I like or. Or how fucking filthy my socks are. They only care about what I produce. It's the distilled essence of myself."

Bob hadn't mentioned that a good number of Gerard's fans cared a lot about what he liked, and would dearly love to know how filthy his socks were. He'd known what he wanted to say. He'd ask why _this stuff_ wasn't valid, why getting the whole package was somehow inferior to the distillation. Maybe he'd even ask if Gerard liked his fans better than his friends. But he just nodded and pretended he understood.

He came back halfway into the question and answer session. A girl wearing a Joker t-shirt was standing at the mic. "What, um. What are you planning for your next book?"

Gerard shifted and swung his legs over the side of the table. "Well, I'm really focusing on Black Parade for now, there are a lot of stories left to tell there. But, uh, I might be taking a new direction in some of my future stuff. A more, kind of. Something not usual for me." He sounded almost nervous--it wouldn't be obvious to any of the fans listening, he was smiling and cheerful and gesturing as always, but Bob could hear it. Gerard was never nervous during question and answer, he loved it almost as much as just wandering the floor and poking around Artist's Alley. "It's uh, a kind of love story? It's about a guy, and, well. There's this other guy that he likes. He likes him a lot, and they work together, so. Well, the other guy works _for_ the guy, sort of. So it's kind of awkward, but he's really into him and, um. The other guy just doesn't seem to pick up on it. At all. Ever."

Bob's mouth went dry and he had the urge to run from the room, because he had to be turning beet red, but then Gerard glanced over his shoulder at him. Just a glance, not even ten seconds worth, barely a twitch, but Gerard _looked_ at him.

"And so, the one guy keeps doing all sorts of insane stuff trying to get the other guy to notice him, and. He like, hangs around naked all the time, even though he _hates_ being naked, but. The other guy either isn't into it or has the thickest skull known to man."

The girl giggled, awkward and nervous, and went to back to her seat, and the rest of the people lined up asked questions about brushes, and what was up with the marching skeletons, and if the banners from issue 3 were ever going to be properly explained, and it seemed like it took years for them to make their way through the line of people, and then for Gerard to sign books and shirts for the people who rushed up to the stage afterward because he was too sweet to turn them away like he was technically supposed to. And then Gerard had to chat with all his artist buddies, and reminisce about the good old days of printing his comics himself after hours in Kinko's and stapling his hand into the middle of a stack because he was trying to do it at four in the fucking morning with the editors.

But once everyone had filed out, and Gerard turned around to look at him again, biting his lip with two spots of pink at the apples of his cheek, Bob had him up against the table. He ducked his head to kiss the curve of Gerard's neck, pale and sweaty from the exertion of speaking. Gerard trembled a little and his Adam's apple bobbed next to Bob's nose, close enough to kiss so he did. Bob picked his head up enough that his nose brushed against Gerard's, and muttered, "It's the second one."

Gerard's eyes were closed, but they opened, bright and clear, and Gerard grinned at him, biting one corner of his mouth. "I fucking hoped so."

Bob kissed him, lips bumping against his stupid teeth until Gerard got with the program and kissed him back. Bob could forgive him for the wait, since god knows how long Gerard had been waiting for _him_ to get with a hell of a lot more important program. Gerard's lips were chapped, but his tongue was wet and soft when it brushed against Bob's, and the inside of his mouth felt like a safe place. Bob pulled away, though not far enough that he couldn't feel Gerard breathing against his chin. "I'm such an idiot."

"You are," Gerard agreed.

Bob looked at him for a long moment, then frowned a little. "Did you just profess your love for me in front of an entire audience?"

Gerard looked thoughtful for a moment, then sheepish. "I kind of did, huh?"

Bob thought about feeling awkward, and invaded, because he didn’t like having his picture taken, much less having his love life aired out in front of a mob of people. But he decided to grope Gerard’s ass instead. Gerard made an entirely satisfying sound suspiciously close to a squeak, and Bob laughed. “You’re so weird.” Gerard gave him a dark look until Bob slid his hand into his back pocket and smiled. “Love that about you.”

Gerard grinned, showing all his coffee-stained teeth, and Bob kissed him again until Gerard pushed him off. “Can we--room?”

Bob wanted it more than anything he could think of in recent memory, and he could take Gerard up to their room, push him into bed and not let him out for a day or two. They could order room service in between, take a lazy shower, watch TV while they curled together and just fucking _be_. But he forced himself to close his eyes, ignore the hot flush building in his cheeks at all those really awesome ideas, and think of the calendar. He could see it behind his eyes, practically Technicolor in front of him. “You have a signing in an hour, and then you’re scheduled to emcee the charity auction.”

 _He opened his eyes again to Gerard’s disappointed face. There was still a bit of that light in his eyes, that said _Take me upstairs and fuck me until I can’t walk, that’s all I want_ , but it was fading, giving over quickly to _I have a responsibility to the comic community and to all my fans_. It was one of Gerard’s default looks, and Bob hated that he was far enough gone for this guy that he almost found his devotion sexy. There should really be limits to this kind of thing; you’d think that being denied sex couldn’t be arousing, but with Gerard, anything was possible._

 _*_

 _Bob was waiting in the room for Gerard to get back, thinking about the feel of skin smooth under his palms and soft under his teeth. It seemed like forever since he'd felt anything at all, so busy working and struggling and being fucking enraptured with his boss that he didn't go out to get anything for himself. Working for Gerard took up most of his time, and he was a guy with needs, sure, but those needs were more and more easily met by his hand and maybe a hot video. He was getting older, sure, and he was getting lazier. Going out, picking someone up, dealing with niceties, taking them home (or not), getting off and hoping it would be good, getting _them_ off and hoping it would be decent and over quickly: it was just too much effort after a long fucking day (or night, depending on how Way Standard Time was running that week). But the idea of it never lost its appeal, and Gerard was going to come in through that door and want it, need it, take it from _Bob_._

He wasn't surprised, really, when Gerard came home past nine with his eyes drooping and his feet shuffling. It had been a long fucking day, panel and signing and event all in one, and from the time, it seemed pretty obvious that Gerard had spent an extra few hours on the floor, probably signing and doodling and chatting, and generally being awesome and accessible. The fans came first. Bob sighed and got up off the bed.

"No. Get." Gerard closed his eyes for a second and shook his head, waving his hand weakly. "Get back in there. I'm gonna." He yawned, stretching his words high and long. "Gonna give you the best. Of your entire fucking life, I'm."

"You're going to go to bed," Bob said, and he came over to wrap his hand around Gerard's waist--he'd done it before, guided him into bed, because Gerard was never prickly about physical contact--and move him forward.

"Damn straight," Gerard told him blearily. "It's going to be so fucking good. Your mind is just. _Blown_."

"Yeah, I'm sure it will be." Bob sat him down and knelt to untie his shoes. Gerard pushed weakly at his shoulders, shaking his head.

"No. No, I wanna. You first. I want to."

Bob pulled his shoes and socks off, then pushed his chest lightly. Gerard fell back against the bed, eyes closing even though he made a soft sound that implied it was against his will.

"You want to?" Bob got back up and unbuttoned Gerard's jeans. It was pretty phenomenally disappointing that it was happening like this; first time he got into Gerard's pants, what an event. "You're not even hard."

"I could." Gerard was too tired to even blush, which was just testament to how exhausted he was. He still kept shaking his head, even while Bob was pulling his jeans down to his knees and then off. "I _will_. Just gimme a few minutes. I can do it. Just have to focus."

"Don't focus, Gee, seriously." Bob knelt to pull off his own socks, and he contemplated stripping Gerard's shirt off before deciding against it. Even if Gerard had apparently rescinded his shirtlessness phobia for Bob's benefit in the past few weeks, there was no reason to take it off without his permission except skin hunger. Bob had plenty of that, but he would rather get his fill when Gerard was at least mostly conscious. "Just go to sleep."

"I don't want to." Gerard frowned, and Bob peeled off his own jeans and t-shirt before climbing into bed behind Gerard. He moved until his chest was flush against Gerard's back and rested his hand on Gerard's side.

"Is this okay?"

"It's." Gerard wiggled, which did very little for Bob's sense of chivalry, fitting himself back against Bob. "S'good. I like it." He kept mumbling to himself for a few moments, but drifted off before long, leaving Bob with the warm line of Gerard's body pressing back against him. It was cozy, and _warm_ , and overall, Bob approved.

He approved even more when he woke up on his other side, blinking in the dark, when his breath caught in direct result of a hand resting over the front of his boxers.

"Finally up, huh?" Gerard's breath tickled the hairs on the back of his neck, and he squeezed gently.

Bob grunted and shifted his hips forward into Gerard's hand, encouraging. "Feels like I've been up for a while, actually."

"Fuck off," Gerard said fondly, and he slipped his hand in through the slit in Bob's boxers. His hand was moist from sweat, probably, which was gross, but also felt really fucking good. Bob thrust minutely into Gerard's grip, and Gerard squeezed him again, harder this time, with his hand hot and firm around Bob's dick. "Cut it out, I was just keeping you busy until you _woke_ up."

"Yeah?" Bob was still sleepy, but he was awake enough to roll onto his back, slowly so Gerard didn't lose his grip. That was the last thing he wanted. He looked down at where the covers bulged over Gerard's arm and hand, then over at Gerard. He had pillow creases on his cheeks again, which were stained bright pink. He was also smiling. "Busy for what?"

"I thought you could use a morning pick-me-up." Gerard leaned in and kissed his earlobe wetly. "Think of it as an apology for last night."

Bob said, "You don't have to apologize." But Gerard was already pulling the covers down and clambering gracelessly over Bob's leg to stretch out between his thighs. Gerard curled his fingers in the waistband of his boxers and pulled carefully, lifting the elastic over and letting it sit snug under Bob's balls.

"I want to, though." Gerard looked up at him and licked his lips, deceptively small when they were pursed into a little smile like that. "I like apologizing." He wasn't new at it, by any means, Bob guessed. He would have said it, probably, if he wasn't completely distracted by Gerard's sweaty hand around the base of his dick and his mouth steadily taking in the rest.

Bob had never really considered blowjobs as an entity. He liked them, sure, what guy didn't? But he didn't have the kind of passion for them that some guys had, either giving or receiving. It felt good, but it wasn't anything amazing, and he was decent at giving head, he thought, but it wasn't something he really enjoyed. Gerard, he suspected, was a man with a serious passion for blowjobs. Bob would have had no idea how to describe his technique (if he had any friends that he talked about blowjobs with, god knew he wasn't about to tell Brian and Mikey about what a hot mouth Gerard had) besides _excellent_. It didn't feel like technique at all, really. Bob wasn't conscious of _now he's doing the sucking part_ and _he must be tired, he's fucking around with his tongue now_ , but just of _fuck yes please more now_.

Gerard dragged his tongue under the head of Bob's cock when he pulled off, and smiled up at him. "How's that for you?"

Bob thought "good" and probably said something like "gfnugh" because Gerard laughed and licked a long stripe from his balls up to the head and then took the whole fucking thing back into his mouth.

There wasn't an awful lot going on Bob's head by this point. He wanted to make Gerard feel this amazing too, and he wanted to get a hand in Gerard's hair (he did that, and was rewarded with an obscene slurping sound that would have been seriously disgusting if it wasn't made around his dick. It was still kind of disgusting, truth be told, and Bob sort of wanted to smack himself for being turned on by it), and he wanted it to last forever.

The final thing, of course, he couldn't have, because as soon as Gerard _slurped his cock_ (and seriously, how fucking gross was that?) he was pulling his hair and coming without warning like a complete jerkwad. He lay back, eyes closed, to recover and contemplate what an asshole he was. He didn't even realize his hand was still in Gerard's hair until Gerard was shifting and his hand fell back against the bed.

Bob propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at Gerard. "Shit, sorry."

"It's cool." Gerard wiped a glob of come away from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and inspected it for a few seconds before sucking it off. Bob hissed out a breath. "It happens."

"I'm a jerk," Bob said sadly, and Gerard shook his head.

"You're not. It's okay. Well. It will be once you get me off too." He rolled over onto his back, like an animal in some kind of mating pose, whatever, and Bob sat up.

"Sure, yeah. What do you want?"

"Whatever." Gerard wriggled a little, because he was a terrible person. "I'm pretty good with whatever."

"I." Bob, who had fantasized upwards of two million things to do to Gerard (conservative estimate), couldn't think of anything. "Just tell me what you want, okay?"

Gerard looked up at him and made a face before saying, "Let me jerk off on you?" Bob had one of those moments when he wasn't sure what his face could possibly look like, but it must not have been good, because Gerard flipped onto his stomach, and sat up, flushing dark. "Sorry, I. Too early? I'm. I didn't mean to--"

"Do it."

"What?"

Bob swallowed and stretched out again, leaning back onto his elbows and looking at Gerard with pleading eyes. He wasn't sure what he was pleading for, but he thought that Gerard would probably have some kind of idea. "Do it. I want you to."

"You do?" Gerard bit his lip and shook his head. "I don't...you don't have to, you know? It was just a stupid. It's early. I say stupid things before I've had my coffee."

"I want you to do it." And it seemed that now he had said it again, it was true. He was thinking about it, and. He _did_ want it. "I want you to come on me. Please."

"Well," Gerard said faintly. "You did say please."

He yanked his boxers off with some unsexy flailing and his pale legs sticking up in the air like flagpoles for a few seconds, and then he was crawling back over and settling himself straddling Bob's hips. "I'm not going to...just your chest, okay? And maybe. Just your chest."

"Yeah, sure." Bob nodded stiffly. "Whatever. Do you want me to stay like this, or?"

"No, no, this is fine. This is good." Bob shifted his weight a little on his elbows to distribute it more evenly and Gerard licked his hand before wrapping it around his dick.

Watching Gerard jerk off was a hundred times sexier than the disparate parts could ever be. The combination of his panting, flushed face, mouth hanging open at a weird angle, the quiver of his belly from exertion, the way his breathing came out in weird puffs and grunts, none of that was _hot_ in and of itself, but put it all together and if Bob was ten years younger, he would probably be coming again by now.

Gerard was fairly straightforward in his method, long fast strokes with a little twist at the head for variety or spice or something. But it was Gerard’s hand and Gerard’s cock, and that was more than enough for Bob.

He couldn’t really see Gerard’s dick, which was the only complain he had about the situation, just a peek of a flushed head out of the end of Gerard’s fist every stroke down towards the base, but he forgot about any kind of downside once Gerard’s breath caught. He whimpered and came over Bob’s chest, thick strands hitting all the way up to his collarbone, one over his nipple.

“Fuck.” Gerard slumped, weight pressing Bob’s hips down against the mattress. “That was fucking. _Fuck._ “

 _“Yeah,” Bob agreed, and he would have liked to ask Gerard to lick it all up off his chest, but it seemed kind of early in the relationship for that. He leaned over to reach the Kleenex box on the bedside table, straining to move when his lower half was practically immobilized by Gerard, and wiped himself up as best he could. He lay back against the bed afterward, exhaling in a loud sigh, and Gerard went with him, curled up against his side._

 _Morning sex always made him sleepy again, and his brain stuttered to a start, like a screen flickering woozily to life, and he ran through the days events. Nothing until after lunch. He closed his eyes and sighed again, content to fall back asleep, sated and with Gerard’s weight on him, Gerard pressing up against his hip._

 _He propped himself up again, and Gerard made a grumpy sound, trying to move closer to fill the space between them. Bob pulled the sheets up and looked underneath. Gerard’s dick lay soft against his thigh under a thatch of dark hair, thick but somehow delicate looking. Bob grunted and let the sheet fall back, laying back down._

 _Gerard was staring at him, bemused. “What the fuck?”_

 _Bob shrugged, a weird one-armed maneuver while laying down. “Just checking.”_

 _“To see if I had a dick?” Gerard sounded more and more entertained as he spoke. “Did it tip you off when I came on you?”_

 _“I wanted to see it.” Bob weird-shimmy-shrugged again. “That’s all.”_

 _There was a long pause, then Gerard‘s cheek was against his shoulder, warm and soft, and he had a hand stroking through the blonde fur on Bob‘s chest. “You’re weird.”_

 _He sounded so stupidly affectionate that Bob kind of wanted to roll around in it forever. He just closed his eyes and smiled. “Look who’s talking.”_

 _*_

 _Gerard was gone when Bob woke up. He blinked and opened his eyes, making sure that he hadn't just rolled out of reach. But no, Gerard wasn't in the bed, and he wasn't over by the table, and he wasn't--the quiet storm of the running shower made Bob flop back against the bed, feeling like a clingy idiot for freaking out._

 _He crawled out of bed, feeling pleasantly sticky from sweat and whatever Gerard had missed wiping him up, and Gerard, of all people, had done an admirable job of sticking to his hygiene schedule; it was the least Bob could do to reward him._

 _Bob opened the bathroom door and didn't bother closing it behind him. He took a moment to admire the blurry flesh (more or less) colored blob that was Gerard through the frosted glass, his dark hair the most visible part of him, wherever it happened to crop up. He slid the door open and Gerard looked over his shoulder with a smile like he'd been waiting._

 _"Hey." He reached up and ran his hand through his soaking hair, pushing it back, and Bob was hard by the time the droplets from Gerard's elbow had hit his chest. Gerard looked down and smiled again. "Yeah, I'm pretty into showers too."_

 _Bob stepped closer, listened to Gerard's breath catch and watched his chest stall, then reached past him to grab the tiny bottle of shampoo. He unscrewed the cap and grinned. "You never used to be."_

 _"Yeah, well." Gerard held out his hand for shampoo. Bob tilted the bottle and they both watched the slow crawl of thick pastel-colored glop out into his palm. Once there was a decent sized puddle, Bob pulled it back and screwed the cap back on. Gerard rubbed his hands together, building up a lather, and gave Bob a sheepish smile. "I couldn't exactly wander around topless without an excuse, could I?"_

 _"You could have." Bob turned away from Gerard and closed his eyes when he felt the first firm stroke of Gerard's fingers into his hair. "I wouldn't have minded. I still don't mind. Not that I want you to stop showering. I'm entirely in favor of showers for you."_

 _Gerard snorted and kept working the shampoo into Bob's hair, massaging his scalp. "You know once we get home I'm just going to give up. I can't keep this up, my hair will probably fall out. It's used to being greasy."_

 _"I guess." Bob leaned back, trying not to lose his balance and slip, but still get his head as close to Gerard's hands as possible._

 _Gerard nudged his knuckles against Bob's temples. "Will you still fuck me when I'm smelly?"_

 _Bob smiled to himself. "I haven't fucked you yet."_

 _Gerard's hands stilled for a moment on Bob's head, and Bob thought for a second he'd gone too far. Then Gerard's voice came back, quieter than Bob had almost ever heard it. "You could. Now."_

 _"Now?" Bob turned around to see Gerard, flushed pink from something besides heat or the sporadic pressure of water on his skin. His hands were still a little soapy and he was gnawing on his lower lip like he might bite it off if Bob let him go for too long. That would be a shame, because Bob was particularly found of Gerard's bottom lip. He leaned in to kiss it to prove it, and to keep him from chewing on it more. Gerard was stiff, but he gave into it quickly, opening up his mouth and pressing his wet body against Bob's._

 _Bob ran his hand over the slick curve of Gerard's back, and Gerard fucking arched against him when his hand hit the first swell of his ass. He wiggled and squirmed, and finally reached back and wrapped his hand around Bob's wrist, trying to drag his hand lower and lower. Bob pulled away from Gerard's mouth, and he made a pathetic sound before opening his eyes. "Why did you stop?"_

 _Bob arched his eyebrows, giving his most innocent face. "Oh, did you think I was going to do it?"_

 _"I. Maybe." Gerard looked pointedly down at Bob's dick, whose interest had not waned in the slightest. "Are you not going to?"_

 _"I'm not." Gerard's face fell, and Bob knew he had less than a second to catch him before he folded in on himself, disappeared behind shuttered eyes and stringy hair. Bob stepped forward to rest his hands on Gerard's waist and shook his head. "I'm. Not here, okay?"_

 _Gerard looked up at him for a long moment. The corner of his mouth twitched up. "Bob Bryar. Do you want our first time to be _special_?"_

Bob sighed. "Maybe. Or, you know. Not in a hotel shower? Is that too much to ask?"

Gerard smiled. "I think it's very romantic." He craned his neck up so he could kiss the corner of Bob's mouth softly. "Fucking annoying. But romantic. I can live with that."

Bob smiled back at him before letting go to swat his hip. "Fuck yeah, you will. You're not getting any until we find a field of roses or something."

"I'll tell Brian to redirect our route home." Gerard looked up at him, then pulled the shower door back again and started to climb out. Bob grabbed his arm when he had a foot on the tile floor.

"Hey, I've still got shampoo in my hair."

Gerard looked down at his hand and then up at his hair. "Rinse it yourself, Mr. Romance."

Bob let him go, and he rinsed his hair himself after he jerked off, as loudly as possible, thinking about that field of roses (not literally, because, fuck, thorns in unfortunate places).

They got dressed with kisses, and Bob had never dated someone like this. People figured that he was as much of a tough guy as he tended to look and it wasn't like he proved them wrong when they spoke to him or anything. He definitely didn't look like the kind of guy, didn't even feel like the kind of guy who would melt at a stupid soft kiss, but his heart was feeling pretty liquid by the time they made it to the elevator.

There was no making out in the elevator, as much as Bob would have liked it, because there were other people there. Bob sort of wanted to say fuck it and do it anyway, but most people around would at least see Gerard's official pass clipped to his back pocket if not recognize him, and the last thing they needed was people snapping pictures on their cellphones or something.

Lunch was almost done when they got down there, but Frank and Mikey were still sitting at a table near a potted tree. As soon as they were in sight, Frank whooped and pumped his fist into the air. Mikey sat next to him looking like a brave little soldier, suffering in silence.

"You fucking fuckers!" Frank punched Bob's shoulder hard when he got close enough. "You're such fucking copycats! I waited years to make a move, and the fucking day after I bag my man, you two just have to resolve all your fucking sexual tension."

"We were inspired," Bob said dryly, and Gerard sat down on his other side and squeezed his knee under the table. It didn't escape Frank's notice.

"Look at you, public fucking displays of affection already! You're disgusting."

"You're jealous," Gerard shot back, preening a little where he sat.

"You didn't have to steal my thunder," Frank said, pointing at Gerard like he was directing his words like a laser. "You could have totally waited a respectful period of time after--"

"Respectful period of time, what is he, a fucking widow?" Bob grumbled, mostly because he was hungry. Mikey silently pushed a half eaten plate of fries towards him, which Bob took even though they were mostly cool already. "We're fucking, get over it."

"I'll take my fries back," Mikey said with a dark look. Bob waved his apology with a mouthful of fries.

"I don't know why you just couldn't wait until after the con was over," Frank was still complaining, but Gerard squeezed his knee again, stroking his thumb and forefinger along either side of Bob's kneecap. It wasn't something he would ever have considered sexy, but it felt _good_. "Look, you're too busy getting table sex to even fucking pay attention to my grievances, fuck you."

"They're not having table sex," Mikey said, more like a threat than a fact.

"We're not having table sex," Bob repeated, and Frank scoffed.

"What, are you a Catholic schoolgirl? Handjobs fucking count, Mary Roberta."

Gerard pulled his hand out from under the table and held both up. "Fucking hand check, okay?" He set both hands down in plain view on the table, and Bob was quietly disappointed by the loss.

"Fine." Frank sniffed and took a long draw on his straw. "Well. Congratulations, or something. I hope you have a lot of hot sex--"

" _Hey._ "

"--while Mikey is in the next room and can hear the whole kinky thing, fuck you, Way, don't fuck with me."

Mikey muttered something bitter that Bob couldn't make out, but he was pretty familiar with Mikey's curses, and he didn't really want to know. He offered Gerard one of Mikey's cold fries, but Gerard shook his head.

"Nah, I'm not really hungry."

"What, didn't you build up an appetite?" Frank started rocking in his seat in an extremely explicit manner, but before he could start making any obscene noises, his phone went off, the happy beat of the Super Mario theme. He pulled it out and flipped it open, eyes scanning a message and his grin getting bigger and dirtier with every word. He pushed away from the table. "Sorry, dudes, I have to run, Brian's stuck in a chair and he's going to need some major suction to get him out."

The three of them watched Frank practically scamper his way out of the restaurant, and Gerard looked sidelong over at Bob. "Is it just me, or is it really fucking scary to think about Brian having sex?"

"Uh, yeah."

"I spend a good part of my life _not_ thinking about things," Mikey said, pulling his own phone out and tapping around. "Brian is the least of my worries."

"Don't worry, Mikey," Bob said. "I would never tell you about all the sex Gerard and I had in the shower this morning."

Mikey looked up, eyes narrowed. "You're going to suffer one day, Bryar." He got up too though, following Frank's track out of the room at a considerably more sedate pace.

"You're scarring my little brother for life," Gerard said, slipping a hand off the table to finally come back to resting on Bob's knee.

Bob nodded, but gestured at the empty seats. "Yeah. But I got us a table for two for a romantic lunch date."

"This is true." Gerard was smiling a little, just at the corners. "I guess romantic lunch dates win out over traumatizing family members."

"Always. Romantic lunch dates are a staple of any relationship. They're better than sex."

Gerard snorted and raised his eyebrows, amused. "Oh, are they?"

"Oh yeah." Bob nodded, authoritative, and ate another handful of Mikey's fries. They really weren't very good cold. "People wonder why so many marriages fall apart? Eight out of ten, it's a lack of romantic lunch dates."

Gerard rubbed his thumb over the top of Bob's knee and grinned. "What about the other two?"

"Sexual incompatibility," Bob said, breath catching when Gerard's hand moved a little higher.

"Good thing I don't have to worry about either one, huh?" His grin was positively evil, and Bob loved it.

"Nope."

Gerard made it almost to the top of Bob's thigh, then squeezed and pulled his hand back over to his own lap. "Awesome. What are we having?"

"Uh." Bob's brain was completely empty of anything clever to say, and he shook his head. "Whatever you want."

Gerard smirked. "Whatever I want, huh?"

Bob shrugged, recovering a little. "I'll flag down a waitress or whatever."

"I'm not hungry," Gerard said. Bob frowned, and he wasn't sure if it was his affection or his job, but his _take care of Gerard_ senses were kicking in.

"You should eat. You've got a long day ahead of you. We're flying out tonight, you know, and you've got the closing ceremony before that."

"God, you're such an _assistant_." Gerard rolled his eyes, and he was smiling, but it quickly faded. "Oh my god. I have to fire you."

"Fire me?" Bob arched his eyebrows. "Aren't you taking a pretty desperate measure to avoid eating lunch?"

"Shut up, no. I mean. I have to _fire_ you. I can't keep paying you and sleep with you too, it would be like. Like I'm paying you for sex."

"You wouldn't be paying me for sex," Bob said patiently, but Gerard was shaking his head now.

"But. Half the stuff you do now is relationship stuff, and if you're still working for me, we won't know what's boyfriend stuff and what's assistant stuff, and it will be fucking confusing and. Just really inappropriate."

"I guess." Gerard did have a point, even if Bob didn't think it was so much of an issue. It would be weird for Gerard to be effectively paying him to do the stuff he would do anyway because he loved him. Really weird.

"Brian is going to be so fucking pissed," Gerard said, pulling a tragic face. "I was supposed to not lose you for at least five years."

"Five years? And what about after five years?"

Gerard shrugged. "He said after five years maybe someone else will have reached the level that they could handle me. You're the only one of your generation, apparently."

Bob snorted at that, even if it was oddly flattering. "I'm sure Brian can find someone else. And besides, like you said, I'll still be doing a bunch of the same stuff. I'll just keep doing the same thing for a while, without getting paid for it. Whatever."

"You sure that's okay?" Gerard looked so worried Bob wanted to kiss him. Then he realized that he _could_ kiss him, so he did. Gerard looked much calmer when they parted.

"I love you, okay?" Bob flushed a little pink across the bridge of his nose, because he wasn't really used to shit like this, but. He thought that maybe he could be. "I just want things to work."

Gerard beamed. "Love you too." He reached forward and ran his thumb over Bob's nose, from one cheekbone to the other. Bob wrinkled his nose under the touch and Gerard laughed. "When you blush, it makes your freckles stand out."

"Fucking freckles," Bob said, without much feeling behind it. Gerard laughed and pinched his nose.

*

The new kid came on a Thursday morning. Bob opened the door in his bathrobe with a “You Say Good Morning, I Say Go Fuck Yourself” mug that Gerard had decorated for him with a little grumpy doodle. Doodle-Bob was scowling and hunching into his bathrobe.

The kid was big; big arms and big smile and really big hair. He was also wearing a worn-out t-shirt that had “Jesus Was F***in Metal” on it and had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder. When he offered his hand, that too was big and warm. “Hi, I’m Ray Toro. The agency sent me.”

He had a good handshake. Bob arched his eyebrows. “I didn’t think we called an agency.”

Ray took his hand back and petted it over his hair. He smiled again, kind of sheepish, and shrugged. “Yeah, not really. I just thought it would be cool thing to say, and I figured you didn‘t look like a guy who would fire me over it.” His smile twisted up a little further at one corner. “Are you?”

Bob liked him. He shrugged and leaned against the doorframe. “I’m not the guy who does the firing. I think you’re safe for now.”

“Sweet.” Ray hefted his bag and tilted his head, peering past Bob into the house. “Can I come in then?”

“If you dare.” Bob backed out of the way and held the door back so Ray could get past him. He shut the door once Ray was safely past, then led him back into the kitchen. They had new curtains, because Bob was a domestic motherfucker given the opportunity. They were light and airy and really opened up the room, as far as he was concerned. Ray set his bag down on one of the stools by the island and looked back at Bob.

“So, I’m assuming you aren’t the pop-goth comics genius of our time?”

“Not exactly.” Bob smirked at the idea of what Gerard would say if he heard that. “I’m Bob. You can sit down, Gerard probably won’t be up for another hour.“ Ray climbed onto the stool next to his bag and looked around the kitchen. It was a mismatch still, to be sure, but Bob liked to think it was a little homier nowadays. Bob moved to lean against the counter, watching. “Is this your first gig, or what?”

“No, I’m. I’ve done some stuff before, society moms, rich housewives, that kind of thing.” Ray shrugged. Bob had gone through that runaround too; he knew how it was trying to build up a reputation, some references. “Nothing full-time like this, though.” He looked down at the counter, and Bob watched his thick fingers play over the pattern in the marble. “I was surprised to hear it was open, you know? From what I heard, the last guy was like, a fucking titan. No one thought he’d get fired.”

Bob shrugged as casually as he could manage. “Maybe he found a better opportunity.”

Ray frowned and shook his head, disbelieving. “Better than this? Fucking comics, man, with lodging and everything? It’s a sweet gig. I don’t know what would be better.”

Bob shook his head and quietly thanked Brian for sending him someone so easily teased. “You’d be surprised what offers come up.”

Ray looked intrigued. “Yeah? Did you know him?”

Bob opened his mouth, but there was the sound of the door banging shut and Brian entered the kitchen and pointed his phone at Bob. “You. Stop fucking with the kid’s mind.”

“You weren’t even--”

“I know you,” Brian said darkly, and he turned to Ray. “This is the old you. If you do half as good a job as he did, you’ll be with us for a very long time. Though probably not as long as he will be. He’s got a different kind of contract now.”

Ray looked at him, eyes wide, and Bob did love fucking around, but he raised his hand and thumbed over the bit of silver on his ring finger, so it caught the light. “The non-expiring kind.”

Ray looked from Bob to Brian, like he was waiting to hear if this was a joke too, and when neither of them said anything, he grinned. “Nice.”

“Think that for now, kid, he’s going to be telling you how to do your job for at least a year.” Brian gave Bob a sweeping look and smirked. “You’ve gained weight.”

Bob flipped him off lazily. “Fuck you, I‘m settling. It happens.”

Brian snorted and his phone went off practically on cue. He waved the ringing phone at Bob. “Only if you sit still long enough.”

Bob watched him disappear back to his usual room with a smile. He had no problem with sitting still. Gerard would be down in a little while, and they’d have breakfast and get to know this new kid, and maybe Gerard would be up for a snuggle and maybe a quick fuck before he had to get back to work. Brian and Frank might still be rushing around, fighting and breaking up and making up, and that was fine for them. But Bob was settling, and he was fucking thrilled to have a place to settle into.

 _end_


End file.
